Man charged in puppy's shooting arrested again, this time on domestic battery charge

Kevin James McClenithan also threatened the deputy who arrested him, according to a Sheriff's Office report.

A man charged this past spring with shooting his neighbor's Labrador retriever puppy with an illegally-owned gun after the pup wandered into his yard has been arrested again, this time charged with domestic battery.

Kevin James McClenithan, a 46-year-old Bunnell man, was arguing with his girlfriend Sept. 27 over rumors of her cheating on him while he was in jail, according to an arrest affidavit.

Sometime in the afternoon, he pushed the 62-year-old woman over a bar stool at their home on western State Road 100, grabbed her around the throat, slapped her across the face and head-butted her in the forehead, the woman told deputies.

When she got up and tried to get to her truck, he "repeatedly spat in her face," according to an arrest report. The woman left to stay at a relative's house and called McClenithan Sept. 29, and he "indicated that he was going to burn everything within the residence," according to the report.

The woman called the Sheriff's Office — saying she hadn't done so earlier "because she wanted to give him a couple of days to 'cool off'" — and asked for a deputy to come with her as she got her belongings out of the house.

A deputy noted marks on her chin, cheek and forearm. The woman told the deputy that when McClenithan grabbed her around the neck, she had trouble breathing, and believed she would have passed out had he held on any longer.

Deputies arrested McClenithan on a charge of domestic battery by strangulation, and he told a deputy on the drive to the jail that when he was released he would find the deputy and "(profanity) me up," the deputy wrote in the report. McClenithan also threatened to burn down the house, which is not in his name, according to county records. The deputy recorded the threats with a body camera.

At the jail, after deputies asked McClenithan if he had any contraband, deputies searched him and found a baggy of marijuana in his wallet, and added charges of marijuana possession under 20 grams, and of bringing contraband into the jail. He was also charged with corruption by threat.

McClenithan hasn't yet been tried for the shooting of the puppy this past May. He faces two charges — one for cruelty to animals, and one for illegally possessing a firearm as a convicted felon — and the case is scheduled for pretrial on Oct. 6.